Teachers at the Gompers Preparatory Academy charter school are unionizing because of what they say are issues with unequal pay, a long work year and a lack of teacher voice in decision-making at the school.

Teachers at the Chollas View school of about 1,300 students say they have to work 11 months out of the year, including during holiday breaks and a three-week summer school session. Unlike at other schools, teachers say that Gompers requires teachers to work during holiday and summer breaks and does not pay them extra for doing so.

“We just feel like with how long our school year is, it's hard for us to really stay top notch and be effective as we can always be,” said one Gompers teacher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by school leadership.

Teachers also say that they don’t get effective or frequent enough teacher evaluations. They allege that Gompers administrators have rejected efforts by teachers and students to organize certain student clubs such as a Gay-Straight Alliance and a Black Student Union.

They also claim that some first-year teachers are making more money than teachers who have been at the school for two or three years. Teachers claim that the school’s pay scale doesn’t consider prior years of experience — in terms of pay, all teachers are considered to be first-year teachers when they start at the school.

Teachers say these issues have led to burnout and high teacher turnover at the school.

“People want to stay, but the reality is especially when people start forming families, it’s just difficult to stay,” said another Gompers teacher who also asked to remain anonymous. “I think for a lot of teachers, even if the pay scale didn’t change but hey, you have the summers off now, that would make such a difference.”

At least three-quarters of the certified teaching staff at the school have signed a petition to unionize, said Cheryl Coney, an organizer with the California Teachers Association who is helping Gompers teachers unionize. Coney said the petition is awaiting verification by California’s Public Employee Relations Board, which is the authority that will decide whether a union can form at the school.

Gompers leadership disagrees with the teachers’ claims about working conditions at Gompers, but will not discuss the claims in an interview, Gompers’ Chief Business Officer Jenny Parsons wrote in an email to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

“While we strongly disagree with the unfounded claims being made about our school, it does not help our school or our community to address these matters through the media. Instead, we will directly engage with our students and our staff to address these issues,” Parsons wrote. “We are proud of our college preparatory culture and curriculum that attracts high-quality educators, and are hopeful these discussions will bolster our program for the benefit of all staff and students.”

If a union is successfully formed at Gompers, the school will become one of a few unionized charter schools in San Diego County. Out of 133 charter schools in the county, eight are unionized, Coney said — Preuss School, Harriet Tubman Village, Helix, Steele Canyon, Darnall, Iftin, River Valley, Discovery and MAAC.

Statewide, there are more than 300 unionized charter schools out of about 1,300 charter schools total, Coney said. Charter schools are independently-run public schools.

The unionization effort has divided teachers at Gompers. A handful of them spoke against unionization at Tuesday’s meeting of the San Diego Unified School Board.

“I’ve seen the division on our campus lately,” said Dolores Garcia, who said she is a Gompers teacher, during the board meeting. “We were a family at one point and now things have changed.”

Some Gompers teachers who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting said they were upset that they were not consulted by the union organizers before they made moves to form a union.

“I have a voice at a charter school and I do not have to involve the politics that comes with a union,” Gompers teacher Jessica Chapman said at the board meeting.

One of the teachers on the union organizing committee, Azucena Garcia, spoke up against the dissenting teachers’ claims that the committee has not been transparent or honest.

“We the organizing committee here at Gompers have been democratic throughout the process of organizing our school,” Garcia said during the board meeting. “We now have a few people who are trying to go against what the majority has already decided.”

If Gompers teachers are successful in forming a union, membership would be voluntary and teachers could simply not join if they don’t want to be in the union, Coney said.

On Tuesday, the San Diego school board — which has zero control or say in charter school operation matters or whether the school’s teachers unionize — took a rare step in weighing in on the unionization effort at Gompers. The board passed a resolution calling on Gompers leaders and staff “to engage with their organizing employees in a lawful, respectful and productive way.”

The board voted 4-1 to approve the resolution, with John Lee Evans voting no. He said he didn’t have enough information about the situation and thought the resolution implied that Gompers administrators were not treating the unionizing teachers respectfully.

While school board trustees said they were not aware of any intimidation or harassment by Gompers administrators, Coney said the school’s administrators and board members have been asking teachers if they signed the petition to unionize. Coney characterized that as a form of intimidation.

The director of Gompers, Vincent Riveroll, has not made a public statement about the unionization effort. Riveroll is part of a union himself — he is a member of the Administrators Association of San Diego, a union for school administrators, according to the organization’s website.

Last year, Riveroll made as much money as the highest-paid San Diego Unified School District principal. He was paid $148,569 last year, according to Transparent California.